Thursday, April 27, 2017

So there is a saying here in Chile that is "Walking more than a mormon" which is what you say to people who walk a lot hahaha. Good news though: This mormon won't be walking anymore because we got bikes again!!! I'm pretty happy, and we are just hoping that they dont get robbed again...

So on Wednesday this super awesome thing happened. Its called the Census of Chile. What does this mean? That legally everybody HAS to be in their house and nobody is allowed to work or leave until after they get counted in the census. Which basically means that they cannot escape us when we pass by their houses and everyone answers because they think we might be the census people. It was great! We were able to contact a lot of people and find some old investigators and set a lot of appointments to visit them after.

One thing that our president has been focusing on a lot recently is working with members. We have been striving to do it a lot more and we have been seeing a lot of good turn outs! This week we had 5 new investigators, all references from members and 4 came to church! It's awesome to see how much easier is is being a missionary in a good ward where the members do their part.

So Saturday we had a BAPTISM!!! Joaquin was baptized, he is 10 years old and is the son of Natalia, a less active who we activated. He is the best and was so excited for his baptism and everything was going really well... until the morning of his baptism. That morning his grandma came to their house to "Invite them to go on a trip" which basically means she was trying to take Joaquin away so he wouldn't be baptized. Well he knew that, so he told her no and the grandma got really mad at Joaquin and Natalia. Basically she told them that if Joaquin got baptized they could forget about being part of the family and that they would never talk to them again. It was a very big test for Natalia because she is only 26 and has always been very close to her mom. But she told us that she knows that the gospel is true and she feels so strongly that they need to keep strong in the church. They are such an amazing family and such great examples of keeping strong through (huge) trials. The baptism itself turned out great, the spirit was so strong and seeing Joaquin so happy made all the sacrifice worth it!